Posted on 12/28/2004 8:14:26 AM PST by dead
The survivors have blank stares and do not speak. We walk together among black and bloated bodies still lying in the streets of Banda Aceh three days after the 25 minutes of terror that struck on Boxing Day morning.
"We thought it was the end of the world," says Sofyan Halim, who lost 15 members of his family.
Banda Aceh's 40,000 people have suffered greatly over the years, caught in a bitter fight between the Indonesian military and rebels struggling for independence from Jakarta. But nothing like this; never before such death and utter devastation.
Nobody here is talking about recovery, just survival.
This is just a slice of the devastation wreaked across 11 nations by an earthquake and resulting tsunami. The rescue mission here is painfully slow, just as it is in most of the stricken areas.
Only a 16-hour boat ride away, close to the epicentre of the earthquake, is an island of 100,000 people - all of them unaccounted for and beyond the reach of Indonesia's limited resources.
"We just don't know about them," a government official, Djoko Sumaryono, says of Simeulue. "No contact makes us fearful. We're trying to send helicopters there."
An Australian trying to reach Simeulue yesterday with vital aid and a satellite phone also fears the worst. "There will be people there with nothing, no fuel, no food, no water, nothing at all. The whole place is washed away I'd say," Brian Williams says.
Among the ruins of what used to be Banda Aceh's thriving market, shocked men and boys pick through the rubble, ignoring dozens, perhaps hundreds, of rotting bodies.
When the stink becomes unbearable, they cover their faces and continue their search for anything that will keep their families alive. Food is desperately short, so much so that people stand for hours in the sun outside the few shops untouched by the devastation in the hope they will open and sell them food.
Looting and lawlessness are other problems plaguing the region, but there are by no means the worst. The head of Banda Aceh's military hospital, Taufiq Urahman, says there are grave fears of an outbreak of cholera and typhoid. "Banda Aceh is paralysed," he says. "This is a very grim situation."
Survivors say the city was shaken first by two earthquakes, five minutes apart. Three tsunamis came 25 minutes later.
"The water was as high as a coconut palm," says Sofyan Halim. "All the debris came with it. People were screaming. Some got away, many didn't. The water went 15 kilometres inland in some places. It was all over in 25 minutes. That's all. How can that be ... such devastation."
It is difficult to imagine how Banda Aceh can rebuild itself. Trees, uprooted and dumped kilometres away, litter the streets, as do the twisted shells of cars. Layers of stinking mud cover everything and several of the biggest shopping centres have collapsed. Even the symbol of Aceh, the Baiturrahman mosque, has been badly damaged.
One of the many ruins, the three-storey Doctor Zainal Abidin Hospital, tells a particularly grim tale. "Children in emergency wards were killed [when the water hit]," says a nurse, Citra Nurhayat. "Soldier patients suffering from malaria helped to evacuate other patients."
Families sit in shock in the street or in the grounds of mosques. Only the children seem to cry; the parents seem numb with disbelief.
A 34-year-old mother, Nurhayati, says she has only had bananas to feed her three-month-old baby since Sunday. "I need baby food as well ... no aid has come to us yet."
Scores of badly injured people lie in the corridors and on verandahs of the only operating hospital in Banda Aceh. Patients have no water to drink and have only dry packed noodles to eat.
Saripah, 60, who could not hang on to her six-year-old granddaughter in the tsunami, came to the hospital yesterday for medicine. She was turned away. Outside was a 16-year-old girl who lost an entire family. She had been told there was nowhere to treat her leg wound. Nurses say there are thousands like them.
Survivors and rescue workers bring the dead to Lambaro, a village a few kilometres outside the city, and lay them under plastic sheets near a roundabout in the hope that relatives will come and identify them.
But the threat of disease and Muslim tradition that the dead be buried within 24 hours have prompted mass burials.
About 1500 victims, many of them children, were buried after a funeral on Monday night. There are so many bodies - officials say the death toll in Banda Aceh alone may be as high as 10,000 - that an excavator is digging graves on a two-hectare plot of land near the village.
Indonesian officials fear that communities and islands off the west coast of Sumatra may have been even harder hit.
Shortages of food, water and medicines in Banda Aceh are already causing anger among the Acehnese. Indra Utama, a community leader in the city, says the military must provide more urgent aid. "Where is the military?" he asks. "They're just taking care of their families. There is no war in Aceh now, why don't they help pick up the bodies in the street?"
However, the Indonesian military has started flying medical crews and badly needed emergency supplies into the area in Hercules and any other available aircraft from Medan. It admits much more is needed. At an emergency aid centre at the Banda Aceh parliament only biscuits and drinking water had arrived yesterday afternoon.
Brian Williams, who has lived on Simeulue since 2002, yesterday flew into Medan from Sydney with his wife, Dewi.
He is desperate to contact the island, where he runs a surfing and fishing tour business, but communications are down.
He believes the main town, Sinabang, has been "wiped out".
Mr Williams plans to make the 16-hour trip to Simeulue on a boat laden with Australian aid. "I just want to make sure they're all right and get them some help."
International Aid is a very reputable faith based relief organization headquartered in West Michigan. They could certainly use contributions.
I care plenty about your freedom, but I have to weigh what is important TODAY. Four days ago, your freedom was very important, but it has slipped a little in the rungs of reality. I think helping the people whose children were ripped from their arms by giant waves and whose livelihoods have been utterly destroyed through no fault of their own is a teensy bit more important right now than your right to bear arms. I think the fundamental problem with your and Don't Tread on Me's "reasoning" is that you are equating the corrupt governments of certain countries with the people inside them. The innocent victims of this country have nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that their countries didn't send money to Florida or with the strong likelihood that corruption is rampant inside the government walls. The fact of the matter is that many charitable organizations don't give money to the governments of these countries. They show up in person with help--goods, services, food, medicine. They know better that to just hand over millions of dollars to random government officials. Just because people happen to reside inside a country that has a corrupt government or that isn't quite as generous with their donations as the US it, does not mean that they should not be helped when they need it the most.
So you ARE accusing me of aiding terrorists. Well, me and probably about 80% of FReepers give to charitable organizations. I'd like to see you accuse the FR community of aiding and abeting terrorists and see how fast your head will spin getting kicked out of here. Why don't you just post a new thread in chat describing your feelings about those who give to charity? That's a beat down I'd like to see.
Yes, cwiz24, your charity would be spent so much more appropriately if you sent William Tell cash for his cause.
What about me? I have a $51,000 project to build on my property following the Florida hurricanes. I am not receiving one red cent from FEMA to help me repair my property.
Why is it that you want to send foreigners money after this tsunami, but you will not send William Tell money or will not send me money???
We are Americans, and we are NOT terrorists! You are sending money to foreigners and some of that money may well get into the hands of terrorists--which is normal for international charities!!!
What is with you? How can you be so cruel and thoughtless--and selfish?
How do you know I didn't give money to the victims of the Florida hurricanes? Do you have access to my bank account that I'm not aware of? You jumped so far to that conclusion, you jumped right over the truth.
No, we just realize that the "innocents" are not in charge. The thugs and dictators and corrupt officals are in charge. The thugs will get the goods or the cash--the innocents rarely see it.
They know better that to just hand over millions of dollars to random government officials.
You are very wrong. Study up on the "Oil for Food" program. You are naive if you do not know where most of the World Bank money goes--(hint: think "corruption").
Some money that you spend on gas for your car, or on wood to help rebuild your property, may get into the hands of terrorists too. But is that stopping you?
You keep quoting the Oil for Food program. Somehow, I think that is your only example. I wouldn't give money to the UN if my life depended on it.
Don't patronize me. You enjoy talking down to people, don't you? Do you do ANYTHING nice for other people on your own accord?
Who IS responsible then?
If you locate an organization that is collecting money to send arms to such countries so that their people can obtain freedom and accountability from government, let me know.
Just saw a report on FoxNews about bodies still laying on the sides of roads and still snarled up in trees. Horrible, horrible situation there.
I didn't say that.
I said I live in Florida and I have a $51,000 repair job to do that FEMA is not helping me with--not even one cent.
Why not just send all your "tsunami money" to me (or to William Tell)? I am an American and I am not a terrorist. Should I not be more deserving of your money than somebody in Sumatra?
What? Could you possibly string together a sensical post? I know it's difficult, but try. It's a big help for the rest of us.
I already sent you money.
By the by, just because someone isn't an American, does not mean that they are a terrorist. And just because someone IS an American, does not mean that they are not. You act as if the two terms are mutually exclusive.
If you aren't careful you will be. If you give money to a charity, make sure it's a charity that gives needed supplies to the people who need it, and not their governments.
NEVER donate to a charity with executives making 6 figure salaries. NEVER donate to a charity that blindly flushes money away by giving it to another government to help its people.
Bottom line: Only give to a charity that helps the people directly with supplies. Anything else and you could very well be donating to terrorists or corrupt leaders.
The nicest thing I do for people is I attempt to get them to stop sending their good money to charitbale organizations.
These people do not read the U.S. Budget. If they did, they would see that the United States spends $1 trillion every ear on charities--from our tax dollars!
Once they realize this, many then start questionoing why they send money to charities directly when the U.S. is spending $1 trillion a year anyway on charities--of their own tax dollars! I think that is a noble use of my time, and is a very nice thing to do for people.
Don't you think so?
No I don't.
That's what I've been saying the entire time.
It does sadden me how many people, and unsavory governments are going to be lining their pockets because of this.
"Oil For Food" is a very good example, except this could get allot worse.
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